Rick Packer: We think there are two requirements for success in any organization, you have to be both smart and healthy. The smart stuff is everything that we learned in business school, but the other piece is health, how healthy is your organization. So what most leaders do is they go back to what they're comfortable with, and that's on the smart side of this equation, and start tweaking the dial. So we think the competitive advantage really is on the healthy side of this equation. Tim Spiker: Are you focused on creating healthy dynamics within your leadership team? I'm your host, Tim Spiker, and this is the Be Worth* Following podcast, a production of the People Forward Network. On this show, we talk with exceptional leaders, thinkers and researchers about what actually drives effective leadership across the globe and over time. You just heard from Rick Packer. Rick is a principal consultant with The Table Group, the consulting practice of bestselling author, Patrick Lencioni. For Rick and The Table Group, a successful leadership team needs to be two things, smart and healthy. The problem is that most leaders neglect developing health and healthy dynamics within their leadership teams, even though that's where the greatest opportunities for competitive advantage live. In this episode, Rick joins me to share about the differences between being smart and being healthy. Along the way, you'll hear about the value of uncomfortable conversations, avoiding artificial harmony and being a champion for effective conflict. Let's jump into the conversation by hearing about a leader who not only had a huge impact on Rick, but who also created a surprise development opportunity for Rick early in his career. Take a listen. Rick Packer: So I'm going to go back to mid 90s. There's a guy by the name of Ed Eppley in Columbus, Ohio. And at the time I was working and living in Columbus. I was earlier in my career and Ed took me under his wing. He was a leadership consultant. And in our organization, we put on leadership programs. I was a student in several of his classes. He mentored me. He still mentors me to this day. And he's one of the most influential people in terms of me as a father, as a husband, as a business leader, as a consultant. And I'll just give you a quick example. I don't know what part of the relationship, it was just a year or so in I believe where I went up to Ed and said, "Hey, what you do as a profession, I have an interest in this." And he said, "Okay, sounds good." Rick Packer: He's like, "I think you have some skills and let's work on them." So he and I developed this relationship. We'd get together and have coffee and lunch on occasion. And so he called me up one day and he's like, "Hey, Rick, I have another client here in town that I'm going to go in and do some work with, how about you come with me?" So we're driving in his car, pulling up to the client site and he said, "Hey Rick, do you remember when you were in that class I was teaching and we were going through the eight step planning process?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah, I remember that." And he said, "You remember the eight steps?" I'm like, "Yeah, somewhat." He said, "Great, because you're teaching it in five minutes." Tim Spiker: And your immediate next thought was what? Rick Packer: Bring it on. Tim Spiker: Oh, wow. Rick Packer: Bring it on, because I just was a little bit nervous because I'm like, "I don't know if I remember all the eight steps or not," but I knew Ed was there and he'd be in the bad back of the room and he would help me through it. But that was my relationship with Ed. We would have these conversations, but for the most part he would push me or pull me into these experiences because there was nothing like learning on your feet in front of a group of people and teaching them a topic that they may know more than I do. And they certainly had more experience. I was still, again, young in my career, but that's what Ed did for me. He gave me the environment and then he gave me the encouragement to get into the career that I'm in right now. So absolutely the most influential leader in my life. Rick Packer: And then, of course, would talk about a few other colleagues that I met at my first company out of college, at CompuServe, great leaders that I worked with for a number of years. And then, of course, Pat Lencioni now who I work with at The Table Group. Tim Spiker: What do you think it takes for a leader like Ed to be able to say, "I'm going to take young, inexperienced Rick Packer and I'm going to put him in front of my clients."? I'm thinking about there's a professional, he's got something at stake there and yet he's willing to say, "Here you go, Rick." Now I'm sure part of that is that he'd been around you and he had confidence in you, but I also know that there are tons of leaders who would never be willing to put their relationships and their reputation on the line by having somebody new to the industry in a sense, really early in their career. So what do you think it is about Ed or leaders like Ed that enable them to be able to take a risk like that and say, "Go ahead, let's give the young guy an opportunity."? Rick Packer: It's not about them. That's the most succinct way that I could answer that question. If you think about leaders and roles that they are in and when they make it about them, there's a different outcome than when they make it about others. And I think Ed, it was never about him, and even though I didn't work for him, I was employed elsewhere, he wanted to see me be successful so he was pouring into me, but the other thing that really was the foundation of allowing that to happen is Ed is the ultimate relationship guy. He has incredible relationships with his clients. He knows them as friends. He goes golfing with them, goes on vacations with his clients. And I've always looked up to the way that he has developed and maintain relationships. On that particular day, in that particular setting, he had so much relational equity with that particular organization that, yeah, it was a risk for Ed, but he had a good reputation already. He wasn't going to diminish because he put me in front of their top 30 leaders. Tim Spiker: That's really interesting because those things in many ways I think would be tied together ultimately. And I'm putting some words into the story, so feel free to correct it, but why does he have all of that relational capital? I'm guessing one of the reasons is because when he did his work with them that it was constantly about them and not about him. And so there was a high quality relationship there, and if in some way you dropped the ball that day, there was enough relational equity that it was going to be okay and he could pick up the pieces and take care of it. But I'm willing to guess that same quality that enabled him to take the risk to have you represent him, even though you were super young and super early in your career, it's the same thing that probably built those relationships in the first place. Do you think that's a fair assumption on my part? Rick Packer: Yeah, that's a really good. Here's a way that I would say it. Some of the best leaders have a way of fading into the back of the room, not being in front, in the spotlight. And Ed had this way of walking into a room, in this case it's a leadership development programs, where his philosophy was I need to get them talking within 30 seconds of us starting, as opposed to I'm going to take you through a 30 minute or three hour presentation, I'm going to get them talking in 30 seconds. So he would tee up conversations in a very Socratic sort of way, which is how I learned to facilitate and he would just would fade, he'd fade into the back of the room and let the people who were being developed be the focal point. Tim Spiker: So he must have also had a world view that had a belief that the people who he was consulting to had, within them, a lot of answers and that his job wasn't to necessarily be the answer guy, but his job was to create space for them to find some of those answers. Rick Packer: Something I believe to this day when I'm working with teams, the answers are in the room, they just need to have the right conversation in the right way to get to those answers. So as a consultant myself, my job to tell the kind truth, to handle the danger when people are avoiding the hard conversations and let the team really get after it, because the answers are in the room. We think there are two requirements for success in any organization, you have to be both smart and healthy. The smart stuff is everything that we learned in business school or getting an MBA, it's all the functional areas inside of an organization. And it's percentages, it's dollar signs and it's being very smart and very linear about running the organization. Rick Packer: But the other piece is health, How healthy is your organization, minimal politics, high clarity, low confusion, low turnover, high productivity. And those are all the under currents inside of an organization that we all feel but we really don't know how to discuss in a productive way. So what most leaders do is they go back to what they're comfortable with, and that's on the smart side of this equation, and start tweaking the dial. And we think the competitive advantage really is on the healthy side of this equation. Tim Spiker: I'm tongue-tied little bit because I'm like, "Of course that makes sense, and there's data that backs that up." You're talking about helping people to be in high quality and high functioning relationships and where you don't have as much of the churn and the gravel and the gears but you're focused on what you need to do, and the word there you used was healthy. What is a healthy executive team? What is a healthy organization? What is a healthy person? What do those look like when they show up in business and they ultimately allow for a competitive advantage? And I love the distinction that you're making here between the healthy stuff and the smart stuff. I think that's a really easy thing for people to get their head around. Rick Packer: And just go one step further on the healthy piece, to actually talk about physical health we go see a doctor and we want to say, or always say, "I want to become healthier." And the there's three pieces of advice that the doctor offers us. It's real simple, we've all heard it before, eat well, get plenty of rest and exercise. And you're like, "Okay, got it." That doesn't mean we all do it. We just understand it. And we look at organizational health through a very simplistic lens as well. We have to lead cohesive teams. We have to create clarity. We have to over communicate that clarity. And then we have to have a way to reinforce it inside the organization. Rick Packer: That's our model of how do you lead a healthy organization. Now it doesn't mean that leaders always do that, a lot of them know it, but it doesn't mean they do it. And then from a consulting standpoint, that's where we come in and really help them run that play, if you will, on how do we turn our organization that's very bright and smart into also a very bright, smart, and healthy organization. Tim Spiker: How long does that process normally take for you and for The Table Group? And that may be a totally unfair question because every circumstance is probably a little bit different, but is there a typical timeframe for you to get to that space where you say, "We've really helped this organization get a lot healthier."? Rick Packer: I'll give you an overarching answer and then a specific one. The overarching answer is organizational health is never done, it's just operations inside of the organization, there's no finish line. In terms of our involvement in an organization is on average I would spend about a year, maybe 18 months, with a leadership team and other leaders inside the organization. And then of course there's a lot to that, but on average 12 to 18 months. Tim Spiker: And it's interesting, I think, if any one of us said, "I'm going to become a significantly healthier human being." And if you were going to put a timetable on that, it's not a lot different than the year to 18 months. I guess it depends on where you're starting from, to a certain extent. But like you said, it's never over. Rick Packer: And just like crash diets don't work. And I've had my share of those, the crash course on organizational health really doesn't go all that well. A lot of organizations want to have a program, and a program starts off with a big splash and a big announcement and then it just fades. Whereas a movement starts very slow, it's very incremental, and then you look up 12 to 18 months later and you're like, "Oh my goodness, we were such a healthier organization." And, again, it was incremental. There wasn't the moment or the conversation or the meeting, it just happened slowly over the course of time. And, of course, leaders struggle with patience. And I once worked with an international team where the previous 25 years, this particular CEO had given the topic of team development about 30 minutes on an agenda one time. And so when they brought us into the organization to work with them, we knew we had an uphill battle, but we did cross the first hurdle and that was the CEO is going to give us more than 30 minutes, which of course is necessary for this level of work. Tim Spiker: More than 30 minutes. I think one of the distinctions as we get involved with leaders and with organizations is helping to clarify the difference between understanding and becoming. And I think in many ways that's what you're talking about. It doesn't take a long time. I can sit through a talk for an afternoon and have a basic understanding of the elements of sleep and eating right and working out, but that's just knowledge and it doesn't mean anything until I put it into action. And it sounds like you guys walk alongside organizations and leaders for a period of time so they can really begin to embody and put into place the things that you're talking about. Rick Packer: And I'll give you a practical application here. So the crux of our team model when it comes to team development, of course you already mentioned the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, we also refer to it as the five behaviors of a team, but it's a pyramid. And the bottom of that pyramid is all about trust. And we know we have to have trusting relationships, whether it's inside or outside of work, we know that's just a fabric of having productive time with other people. We have to have that foundation of trust. So I think what's different relative to how we consult and how we work with organizations, we're just not going to have them read the book, we're just not going to come in and share models with them. 30 seconds after we talk to them about the importance of trust on the team, we're going to get right into a conversation that applies building trust in that moment. Rick Packer: The same thing with the second category of conflict, because you can go out and read a book and talk about having the importance of crucial conversations, having candor with colleagues, having healthy conflict is the way we would refer to it, but all know that but how often do we do that? So when we're working with an organization, we're just not going to teach them that concept, we're going to tee up a conversation where we know there is a wide variety of opinions in the room and really push them into having what we call healthy, productive conflict or ideological debate on the core issues. So it has to be applied. The whole point there, back to your knowing versus becoming is we can approach, in good conscious, the consulting process with teaching, we have to get them applying, and the application happens within minutes of us getting started working with an organization. Tim Spiker: It harkens back a little bit to somebody that we're both familiar with, Andy Stanley, to know why obey and apply. So you get in there and sometimes some of the more difficult things that you guys would be teaching your clients to do I imagine that it's uncomfortable if they haven't done it before, but once they get through and see the fruit of it I imagine that gives them a lot of motivation to continue to move forward. Rick Packer: And you mentioned the word comfortable or uncomfortable, and that's one of the things we help our clients get over hopefully fairly quickly in our process because for this to work, for us to become a healthy organization, we have to get used to having the uncomfortable conversations. And there's a variety of ways that we have to do that. When the leadership team decides to get together and have any meeting, first of all it's one of the most expensive times that organization spends in any given week or month, however often they meet, but those meetings have to be nearly perfect. And if we sit there and just give updates to each other as to what everybody is working on and don't really go back and forth and challenge each other, i.e., having productive, healthy conflict, then we could just do that meeting via email. Tim Spiker: Good. You get them to dig into it and then as they're learning how to do this you're there to help them do it as best as they can while they're learning. Rick Packer: Yeah, that's right. When we're learning how they're wired individually, personality styles, we do some assessments, of course, with teams, most of which they've done before but it helps us really know how to consult to the team and to the individual. So we're taking all that into consideration as we're just navigating through what I call very delicate topics that executives have to navigate through and make decisions and a lot of trade off decisions, again, if the topic has gotten to that level of the organization, other people haven't solved it so it's a challenging topic. So how soon is that leadership team going to start disagreeing with each other so it allows them to get to the point where they're committed because they had the healthy conflict? Because if you don't have the healthy conflict, it's really hard to get the level of commitment. Tim Spiker: And you get a much higher level of thinking, a more sophisticated level of thinking whenever the wholeness of all the things that include the conflict come in. So I'm wondering, what do you do when you run into leaders who are just really challenged at living in that space of healthy conflict? Either they shut down or they become overly emotional or they get the amygdala hijack, what do you do with leaders who are challenged by that? Rick Packer: So first of all, a few teaching points. One is what we call the conflict continuum. And on one side it's artificial harmony and the other side it's mean spirited, personal attacks. And we think one step towards disagreeing with our colleagues is going to result in mean spirited, personal attacks. And that rarely happens. So where most teams are really stuck is in what we call artificial harmony. It's just an artificially harmonious environment, how are you doing today, Tim? I don't really care but I feel like I need to ask just to be polite sort of thing. And it's very surface level. It's artificially harmonious. So we push and stretch them to make movement away from artificial harmony without the fear of it's going to get mean spirited, personal attack oriented. Tim Spiker: There's space in between there. Rick Packer: A lot of space. Tim Spiker: Yeah. A lot of space. All right. Just for fun, what is one of the most mean spirited personal attacks that you've ever seen when you've been in the room with one of your clients? Rick Packer: Oh man, that is an on the spot question. I think the issue Tim is I got 10 in my head right now that's the most relevant [crosstalk 00:18:15] Tim Spiker: So you have seen some? Rick Packer: Oh, yeah. But maybe first though, Tim, think about what's behind that. What's behind that is someone's insecurity about themselves, about their job, they just seen a colleague removed from the team and they're insecure about their placement on the team so they dig in, they guard turf and they have these walls up around them and when that happens and you get people to engage into some of this healthy conflict, they haven't built the healthy muscle memory on how to handle a conversation where we can have discourse but get to commitment at the end of it because of the insecurity and all the walls that have been built. To your question, what's behind someone's reaction right now in the room. So I remember, this is a couple of years ago, we're working with the team and we had the founder of the company in the room and he just absolutely blow up. Rick Packer: I don't know if it was a blow up, but he kept on talking about no, I'm going to frame the conversation. I'm going to frame it. I'm the one who has to frame this conversation. It's my company after all. And you may look at that and say it's harmless, but he felt that other people on the team and their pursuit of healthy conflict were getting into his space as the founder on how he framed things inside the organization. He just had some walls up about it, but it was necessary and is what was needed, but he was completely defensive around it. Tim Spiker: Isn't it interesting? When you start talking about insecurity, when you start talking about defensiveness, I think there are times when some people might say, "Those are really personal issues and maybe they're not awesome in a meeting," but really what's the impact of that? And to me I immediately go to things like what's the strategic direction of the organization, because when defensiveness and insecurity are speaking loudly, they either shut down or damage the conversation. And if you're going to start taking ideas and possibilities off the table before you ever really get started, ultimately those types of personal attributes that are not about being healthy really do impact the effectiveness of a strategy that's being created and implemented. And I know a lot of people put things like strategy in a totally different great because we're over there on the smart side of things versus the healthy side, but to me, and I guess maybe I'm putting the question to you, it seems to me like there's very direct connection between being healthy and also getting to those upper reaches of what we might call smart. Is that a fair connection to make? Rick Packer: Yeah, it really is. And the first thing that came to my mind, Tim, is a concept we teach called the team number one concept or the team number one dilemma, and here's how I piece this together based upon your question, when individuals on the team belly up and they are strictly and solely as a vertical advocate representing their part of the organization, that's a mindset that most of us has showed up with at the leadership level. However, we need leaders to also show up and primarily show up as a horizontal leader across the entire organization, not just a vertical leader, because when you show up as a vertical leader, you want to protect your turf, you want to make sure that your pet projects get funded and get momentum inside the organization. Rick Packer: But when you're a horizontal leader, you're willing to make sacrifices even in the areas that you manage for the greater good of the entire organization. So it's a mindset shift that we ask our clients to make. And I got to tell you, it happens in two phases. There's an intellectual commitment to it, but then the emotional commitment to it is really hard because for most of our career, we show up to a leadership meeting and that person is the VP of finance or the VP of operations or engineering versus one of the leaders at the table for the entire organization. Tim Spiker: And correct me if I'm wrong here, but as you of that story, I immediately think for anybody who might be listening, if you want to hear a great anecdote about that idea that you were just talking about, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, is coming to mind hardcore and what it means to show up as more than just a vertical leader. Rick Packer: Yeah. The concept is in that book, The Five Dysfunctions, Pat also put in The Advantage that was published in 2012, but here's something I just thought of, Tim, was working with a pretty large organization about five or six years ago and the CEO made this comment to his team and he was challenging them to think more horizontal, more team number one related. And he just said, "We are all just passing through our roles. Somebody was in your role before, somebody will be in your role after you, but while you're in your role you got to do best possible job that you can to honor that role." And so I'll take that, I teach it to other clients, but also challenge them with this, we sometimes, again, as leaders in an organization, have to be subservient to the role that we're in and distance ourselves from preference and style. Rick Packer: Because when we are being subservient to the role that we're in, I may prefer something different, I may prefer something that is in my area of the organization or based upon data that I'm looking at or prefer something that would advance the career of people in my department or even me, but the role that I'm in requires me to lean into the conversation differently, because it's not about me, it's about the organization. And when we can get leaders to show up around the executive table knowing that it's not about them, it's about the organization that they've been tasked to lead, meaning the broader organization, not their function, then we're making significant progress with that organization. Tim Spiker: And you said it a moment ago, and I can just see very clearly that is not just an intellectual exercise, it is also own emotional exercise, to go through, to shift the way we see things, to shift the way we see the organization, to shift the way... There's a great thing that leaders, in a sense, want to care for and defend the individuals that they're leading. But what happens when that is showing up sideways, in a sense, and we're no longer playing well or in healthy way with our other executives, then we get into dysfunction and inefficiency and all the things that tear organizations apart. Rick Packer: But here's the backdoor logic to that, because if I'm in the organization somewhere, and I'm a couple [inaudible 00:24:38] down in operations and then I have a colleague, a peer of mine, that's a couple of [inaudible 00:24:43] down in finance or in marketing, I want my executive team members to get along, I want them to be horizontal leaders. Why? Because in the course of me doing my work, if the head of my area doesn't get along with the head of another area, it makes my life more challenging to move work forward in a collaborative way. So that's why it's so important to have behavioral alignment and cohesion at the leadership level, because otherwise all that dysfunction just rolls downhill inside the organization. Tim Spiker: So would it be fair to say to take that, package it up, in a sense, to say the healthier the person, the healthier the executive team, the more effective it's going to be as a group. I'm thinking straight out of The Advantage now. When you talk about that the greatest potential for advantage for an organization is being healthy, which means you're able to adapt, you're able to adjust, you're able to do the things that you need to do. For me, it sounds like a connection between healthy people, healthy teams and ultimately being effective. Rick Packer: And here's how I rationalize that, if you're smart but not healthy, ask yourself this, can we even get into the conversation? Do we even have permission to go there? Meaning, again, you're sitting around the table physically, you're on Zoom nowadays With your leadership team, but there's trouble on the team. There's a lack of trust on the team. We never have healthy conflict. The leader always shuts it down, so what that tells me is we can't even get into the real conversation and I can't even share one of the 10 ideas that would make us more efficient and more effective. Why? Nobody has permission to go there because we all have to make sure it's comfortable and that we're overly nice to each other. Some organizations will say they have a very nice culture. Rick Packer: One of the first things that we do before we start working with the team is we will sit and observe one of their leadership team meetings. And there's a lot of niceties that go on, a lot of updates, which are unproductive, but I have this feeling that they're trying to get caught up. And trying to get caught up is preventing them from getting ahead. And you start flipping the switch a little bit and saying what's going on right now at the leadership level where they can't think strategically enough beyond a strategic plan to figure out how can they get ahead in their market because they're spending so much time just figuring out how to get caught up? Tim Spiker: It's really interesting because you're helping them get to, well, the constructive conflict, the productivity piece rather than just the updating. Before we wrap up here, are there any particular stories that you want to close out with? Rick Packer: Couple of things stand out. I know people like practical examples and stories and illustrations are typically the best way to go down that path. But here is one of the things I'll throw out there, if you're in a leadership role, the question is what are you doing to enable the behavior on your team that's not desirable? And again, I think about it from a parenting perspective. There is behavior that I'm displaying to my children that's resulting in behavior on their part that's undesirable. And to unpack that is always fun, but from a leadership standpoint, if there is behavior on the team of people that you lead that's undesirable, ask yourself this question, what are you doing to enable it? So the very quick story around that, Tim, is so a CEO I was working with, again, six or seven years ago, we were having about two or three phone calls before coming in to work with the team, and in every conversation the CEO would just complain about the CFO nonstop. Rick Packer: There's something here obviously, but I would even try to change the topic to get into something that was... What else is going on? But it always would come back to the CFO. So about the third conversation as we're planning the last steps for our offsite, the CEO went down this path again, complaining about the CFO. And I just said, "You're enabling this behavior." Oh no, I'm not. This is just who this person is. I'm like, "You're letting that behavior take place in front of the team. You're allowing it. You're not addressing it." "How do I address that behavior?" was the CEO's question, "Because I have Wall Street to worry about and investors and all this sort of stuff. Why do I have to worry about the behavior of one person on my team? Rick Packer: Well, it's because it's the only thing you've talked about in our last three phone calls, you're enabling this. The reason why I just paused and shared that particular story, and there is a really good ending to this particular one where the behavior was addressed and was not perfect within couple of months, but was much better, but I think all of us are in situations where we want somebody else to change but we don't think about what we're doing to enable the situation. Tim Spiker: I'm sorry, we're going to have to stop the discussion now because it's a little too convicting for me on the parental side of things. So that's a great story but I don't think I can engage any further. So when we're seeing things that we're not excited about, there's a strong or there would be, should be an opportunity for the leader to look in the mirror and say, "How am I contributing to this? How am I enabling this?" Rick Packer: Without a doubt, because there is something there. We typically see it pretty quickly when we start working with that team and then our job of course is go back to the leader and to tell the kind truth and to handle the danger and not avoid it because it needs to be addressed. And there's multiple ways, of course, we can do that. Tim Spiker: So Pat's latest book, The Motive., I heard him say, not all that long ago, that if he were recommending people to read his 12 books he would recommend that they read this book first. And I'm like, "That's a pretty big statement from somebody who's written 12 books and sold over 6 million copies." So tell us a little bit about The Motive and what it's all about. Rick Packer: Most leadership books are a how to book, how to become a better leader, this isn't that book. This is a why book. Why are you leading? Why do you want to lead? And it's broken down into two categories. And the first type of leader that we come across is the leader that has all these rights that come with their job. And that is they have the perks, they have the benefits, they have meetings that they want to go to and all that sort and they've earned it, they've earned that elevation of being a leader, but what that prevents them from doing and that is to being the responsibility centered leader and that is asking themselves the question why are they in the leadership role to begin with? Rick Packer: And we think the answer is to serve others and not make it about yourself, back to that thing from before, what you and I talked about, it's not about you, it's not about me, it's about in service of others. And just one more thing, one of the very first keynotes that Pat gave on The Motive, he made this comment and he said, "I hope in a couple years time we can stop referencing servant leadership. Why? Because there really shouldn't be any other kind of leadership." Tim Spiker: Rick, I really appreciate you spending time with us and with all the folks that are listening. Before we sign off, let's make sure that everybody knows how to find you and get a hold of you if they want to have some more conversation with you about some of these things that we've been talking about today. Rick Packer: So tablegroup.com I am on the consultant page and then you can just Google Rick Packer and I show up in a couple of searches there with LinkedIn and The Table Group website. Tim Spiker: That was a really fascinating conversation with Rick. And I want to share a few things that really stood out to me. There were so many things that would land as valuable, depending on what your situation might be, but there were three in particular that really jumped out to me. I want to start with the comments he made early on about one of the most significant leaders in his life Ed Eppley. And it was just a wonderful story about a leader who was willing to take a risk with his own reputation for the sake of giving somebody else an opportunity. But there was more to the story, as you heard, as Rick unpacked it there to say, "Even if that interaction had not gone well, as he put Rick in front of his clients, that there was so much relational capital that had been built up by Ed that even if it didn't go well, he was going to be able to step in and take care of that situation. Tim Spiker: But ultimately both in his investment in Rick and investment with his client, there was this very important quality that Rick described, which Ed was somebody who was about other people and not about himself. And so what you see in that is this connection between who Ed is as a person and his effectiveness as a leader, his effectiveness as a leader with his clients, his effectiveness as a leader with Rick. And this idea that I ask Rick, who's one of the most influential leaders that you've ever personally been around, the fact that Ed's name came to mind, that's not a small thing, but you can hear, we just dig a little bit below the surface and it wasn't just about the story that Ed gave Rick a chance with in front of his clients, it was what type of person, what type of human being is able to do that and do it well. Tim Spiker: And so you see this really clear connection between who Ed is as a person and ultimately his effectiveness as a leader. The other part where that same principle shows up again is in the aspect of discussing organizations being smart and healthy. And as you listen to Rick, unpack those different ideas, that the smart aspects of organizations, their strategies and their execution, those types of day to day blocking and tackling aspects of organizations really coincide with what leaders do. But when you think about the health of an executive team, you think about the health of an executive and what fosters that constructive and valuable, healthy conflict that Rick was talking about, it comes back to the quality of how well developed those leaders are. Can they be in an uncomfortable space and still operate with a level of emotional maturity where they're not either totally checked out or attacking other people? Again, that comes back to who are those leaders as human beings, how all developed are they, how mature are they. Tim Spiker: And so even in the pursuit of are we going to pursue being in a healthy organization, starts with the leaders at the top being willing to pursue how healthy they are going to be internally so they can be in that productive conflict really well. And then finally, the idea of artificial harmony. He talked about executive teams operating at this we're all being very nice to one another, which is really interesting, because at a certain level we're thinking, well, I had a mom or a dad or an aunt or an uncle, somebody told me along the way I should be nice to people. And so the fact that we're not digging in difficult things, aren't I doing what I was taught to as I grew up? And unfortunately, that idea of just being nice, especially when it's at the artificial standpoint, artificial harmony, it's just a layer over top of the conflict we actually need to be having. Tim Spiker: And again, it's back to healthy conflict. It's not the mean spirited personal attacks, but it's our ability to disagree well to get to a solution that's not for our ego but for the betterment of the organization. And even in that you can see ego needing to step aside and some courage needing to show up to be in those uncomfortable spaces. Again, that comes back to a connection about who those leaders are. So in these three things that Rick said, and frankly many other things as well, I think we can see a really deep connection between who the leader is as a person or who the leadership team is made up of and their ability to lead themselves, lead their teams and lead the organization effectively. Tim Spiker: So those are three things that really stood out to me and again and again reinforced this idea that who we are really matters when it comes to leading well. Are you focused on developing a leadership team that is both smart and healthy? I'm Tim Spiker, reminding you to be worth following and be sure to follow and engage with us wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.